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inkskinned · 9 months

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you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.

you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.

he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.

a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.

he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.

you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.

people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.

wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.

also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.

he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."

you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.

"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."

he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.

you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.

is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?

you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.

#writeblr #this is a mashup of like 3 dates i accidentally went on lol #by that i mean that i was out with a woman on a date in 2 of these situations #and a man just. joined us. and we were too awkward to say anything while he tried to ''date'' me #& one was a longterm friend that i was like. you what????#like he's nice he's a doctor and my mom was SO happy she was like raquel think about it #''it's a perfect love story you grew up together and reconnected as adults and like the same things and he's friends with ur brother #and his sister is one of ur close friends!!!''#yes but alas. he is a boy . she only likes girls. can i make it any more obvious #anyway im tryna write about like the force of male attention being actually incredibly ingrained to women like we are SUPPOSED to like it #it's seen as the only important thing #even if ur gay #and it's a nuanced thing idk #and while rn i i.d. as lesbian #like .... it wouldn't be UNTRUE to say i am probably like ''cusp bisexual'' bc i CAN experience attraction to men bc like .#sexuality is fluid...#don't tell straight ppl tho bc they do not understand the concept that ppl don't necessarily need a solid everlasting label #they're like GET in the BOX #if ur gay & in boston i'm 30 and pretty please come kiss me.#(i usually only date older ppl sorry in advance tho)

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kawaiichibiart · 27 days

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Okay, but like, consider:

#project sekai #project sekai colorful stage #hatsune miku colorful stage #proseka #prosekai #colorful stage #tsukasa tenma #tenma tsukasa #rui kamishiro #kamishiro rui #ruikasa #do you see the vision???#rui is visiting a resort with his friends nene and emu #there are beautiful beaches and aquariums #and the food is delicious #the resort they're staying in belongs to the tenma family #it's small but popular #emu has actually met saki and was excited to see her again (they met when emu's family had visited the resort a few years back)#she was never able to meet tsukasa #but she heard a lot of good things #while she and nene look around rui decides he wants to try some of the food #he enters a café orders his food and sits at a random table #his food gets delivered and digs in #enjoying every bite (he can see why people liked the food)#when a voice speaks up asking if he liked the food #rui looks up and sees a boy his age sitting right in front of him #he hadn't noticed someone was there #the boy just laughs softly and asks the question again #rui nodded and the boy smiles telling him he's glad before he introduces himself as tsukasa tenma #rui returns to the café everyday of their stay just to see tsukasa again (he's going to miss him when they leave)

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journey-to-the-attic · 9 months

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au where this was how ik and diavolo met for the first time when she was like seven

#obey me #art #they're reading 'the nine lives of montezuma' by michael morpugo by the way #it's about a cat called montezuma and it ends sadly. ik knows this because she's read it already but she wants to see if demons can cry #there's also very devout christian little girl later in the book and i just find the idea of diavolo encountering that character funny #obey me diavolo #jtta ik #slams hands on table how the HELL do you draw ROOMS!!!!!!#peep the incredibly thin lego house. that's all they could find enough bricks to build #also if you zoom in on the piece of paper (and turn it upside down) there's someone else making a little cameo #is it easy enough to tell who it is?? who knows #anyway yeah diavolo drew lucifer and ik drew herself and her dad (you can see zhao's glasses on one of the little figures)#when zhao gets home he sees the massive demon and passes out immediately #i think he and diavolo would make good friends actually. diavolo is the supportive ayi to his single fatherhood #one day dia's like 'man that guy's lonely so he sits him down like 'you know zhao i have a friend who might be your type'#infernal friends au

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seventh-fantasy · 5 months

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friendships as marital ties (and other notes on relational ties) in mlc

this is sort of a third installment in the series of meta on 'mlc as an exemplar of constructing queer narratives out of chinese ideological frameworks' (1. jianghu as queer space and 2. how it manifests in li xiangyi) - focusing on the nature of relationships in it. (which I've briefly mentioned in the first one and finally actually getting to it!!)

I would like to first call attention to chinese ideological frameworks as a premise of queer reading in mlc. the goal of chinese philosophy is to explore the becoming of human, taking two broad paths of the (mainstream) secular vs. escaping the secular. (these two paths are not a strict dichotomy, and rather, are ever in flux and in conversation with each other.) as said by @markiafc too, chineseness is so much about the rigidity of structures, and in equal part, a desire to break out of them. thus, chinese ideological frameworks can very much offer a rich reading of queerness - that mlc, a story very deliberately structured based on chinese ideologies (more accurately, with good reasons for me to believe that it is as such), has managed to materialise.

if the conceptualisation of queerness is premised on a defiance against mainstream norms, then a reliable way to read queerness in chinese ideological frameworks can be to deconstruct it by the mainstream confucian frameworks.

in mlc, this is implicitly set up with its stage of wulin/martial jianghu. then it is further broken down by asking, hey wulin jianghu is still closely related to the hegemonic values and the mainstream structure of authority (historically, 侠 xia being politically involved says a lot about this), so what is the true meaning of jianghu? what does it then really take for jianghu to be a queer space offering comfort and freedom to those who have escaped to it - to be the space that allow the transcendence of rigid roles and labels? mlc took a step further to resist the proxy to mainstream values that wulin jianghu has become.

this is why there can be a very strong buddhism reading of mlc (suggested here, expounded in the A+++ meta by @markiafc here and here, and also what I've seen discussed by cnet as well), given that buddhism is one of the 'extra-secular' ideologies, alongside (philosophical) taoism. I've also touched on a taoist angle in this meta. both schools are articulated in different sets of languages, but ultimately convey a same ideal of what it means to be human and how to live well - that is, to resist the roles and labels defined by the norms.

so, back to confucian frameworks.

a lot can be discussed about mlc with it. but in the context of this meta about relationships in mlc, it's specifically drawing on how confucianism conceptualises social relationships with familial ties as a cornerstone, and how these relational ties are inextricable from the conceptualisation of the 'self'.

as such, one of the things about mlc that has fascinated me is how deliberately it seems to ignore and reject the conventional familial ties (the kind by blood and marital ties). I've joked about how it is a miracle for me to love mlc as much as I do, as a prime dysfunctional family story enjoyer, despite none of its main characters struggling with any complicated feelings about their (biological) parents. but on closer examination, mlc is also making a comment on the model of familial-based relationships that dominates mainstream society - but through the absence of it.

with this, I want to talk about 1) how mlc rejects the conventional ties; and then 2) how it repurposes these ties in its own ways.

the five relational ties in confucianism:

father and son 父子有亲 - (natural) affection between father and son

ruler and subject 君臣有义 - righteous relationship between ruler and subject

older and younger brothers 兄弟 (长幼有序) - this is actually about seniority within the family; the order between older vs younger family members

husband and wife 夫妇有别 - differentiation between husband and wife (demarcated by the 内外 spectrum of gendered inner-external spheres)

friends 朋友有信 - trust between friends

logically inferred, all these ties are hierarchical and familial-based except for the last one: friends. ruler-subject is sort of an extension of the natural familial ties, while friendship is the inverse space of 1-4 (ie. you fall back on 5 to define a social relationship outside of the familial sphere that cannot be qualified as 1-4). while all are premised on mutuality, it is only no. 5 that is defined by a sense of choice and equality.

on the surface, 1-4 don't quite exist in mlc in particularly meaningful ways to the narrative or are even outright overlooked, and friendship is the relational tie most valued by mlc. we can tell it's true just by looking at the most meaningful relationships in mlc of difanghua. but at the same time, it is more nuanced. we can take a closer look at how the story plays around with most of the ties as part of a broader queer narrative.

1) how mlc rejects the conventional ties

mlc's rejection of mainstream relational ties can be best seen in fdb escaping from marriage. and it was not just any engagement with anybody but an engagement with the imperial family. he struggles with the prospect of being married to princess zhaoling, but generally, it's about the idea of complying to mainstream conventions and expectations that includes compulsory heterosexuality. all these point not only to a defiance against amatonormativity - the resistance of the traditional husband-wife tie, but also an irreverence for the ties of ruler-subject (the engagement being an imperial decree) and father-son (matters of marriage being sole decisions made by parents).

of course this is on top of how fdb's own biological father is a p-o-s, and the narrative gives fdb minimal struggles in this aspect, allowing him to sever this tie without looking back (I love it, yeap). along the same line is how lxy is an orphan, who came to gain important relationships that are built on natural compassion among people rather than innate, blood-based ties - even as llh. the sense of defiance from the narrative is especially stark to me considering that he could have a completely different familial-based life - as a son, brother, and ruler, if his biological family was still around. the narrative also deliberately treats his biological brother as a phantom, replaced with an older brother who he was bonded with neither by blood nor marital ties. on dfs's front, absolutely nothing is to be known about his biological family. his childhood history with the toxic patriarch of his life - who is not even his biological father - was afforded a clean break and closure.

we can keep going on, but that's pretty much the point.

ritualisation is one of the most important things of the confucianism school, especially to the honoring of these social relationships (and the officiating of social roles). the one ceremony/ritual we saw in mlc involving the main characters - or more accurately speaking, came closest to seeing - was the imminent wedding ceremony of dfs and jlq. even in that case, it was premised on non-mutuality with dfs being the unwilling, passive party. (fem-coded dfs? 25 marks.)

and that brings us to the next part.

2) how mlc repurposes these ties

that particular wedding ceremony gets hijacked by dfs and lxy/llh, and gets turned into an important milestone in their relationship. they consummate - what is on text - their friendship after a long time being more enemies and rivals than friends. it is a clear establishment of the trust they have for each other. and here it is where I circle back to the subject of this post: friendships as marital ties.

in this article, as a part of a feminist, egalitarian reframing of confucianism, there is a proposal for spousal relationships to be reframed as a friendship tie. (this aligns with the interrelatedness of the five ties eg. the ruler-subject mirrors father-son dynamic, with the confucian belief that rulers have an obligation to their subjects alike parents to their own children.) by doing so, it removes the functional, gendered differentiation assigned to marital ties, and shifts it to something equal, and independent of gender. you exalt the value of trust between spouses, instead of basing marital relationships on gendered roles. as such, spouses become more like friends, and conversely, friends can also become more like spouses. (romance not a prerequisite. it has never been about romance anyway.)

given that mlc has repeatedly applied marital motifs to llh and dfs's characters in their joint narratives, this opens up a reading friendships as a marital tie. seeing marriage as a bridge for strangers to become family, marriage in mlc becomes a metaphor for the chosen commitment and mutual trust put in by strangers/friends (non-familial ties) into the becoming of family. the blurring of lines between marital ties and friendship encourages a genuine space of queer experience that goes beyond any pressure for strict labels - of sexuality, and relationships as romantic, sexual, etc etc.

(note: despite the borrowing of a feminist concept, I strongly hesitate to call mlc a feminist story. it's a whole discussion - or debate - on its own. nevertheless, it is definitely a gender-conscious story that lays foundation for a strong queer and egalitarian reading.)

it is to be noted that it is intended - and also beneficial to take the confucian framework of relational ties beyond face value. the framework offers what it believed to be the most fundamental social relationship dynamics, and sees room for extension and matching to other kinds of relationships (all if not, most). a relationship such as teacher-student, which is outside of the five ties stated, can also mirror the affection of father-son ties, albeit not in a literal and identical way.

speaking of which. fdb and lxy/llh.

indeed they're known by others to be good friends. fdb thinks they're good friends too - insists on it, and puts his best efforts in keeping it that way. but does it really go both ways? if it does not, then can it really still be friendship? my humble take is that, ultimately - weighing in with llh's perspective - this is a relationship that is not so much based on trust, and rather, based on an innate affection that is only unique to family. (in this case, not blood/marital-based but one that was chosen and built aka lxy's relationship with sgd.) in other words, less of a friendship, more of a familial one.

it is a lot clearer considering their relationship from llh's point of view: some brat you never wanted in your life came barging in, and whether he was going to bring any positive effect to your life was secondary to the tranquility - which you have carved for yourself in the past decade - that is so integral to your personhood. no way. but the moment you hear that he's family? well, that changes the game completely. even before learning about fdb being sgd's son (then beginning to take initiative in showing greater acceptance), it is apparent in llh that there was an instinctive resonance with fdb as his shixiong's nephew. (eg. he remarked to his shifu's grave about how alike fdb is to himself.) this is unlike with dfs whom he had taken a much longer time to build trust with. you do not apply trust - aka the quality of friendships - to family. family is something deeper, more instinctive than that. if fdb was never family, I find it hard to imagine given llh's personality, that he would have let some brazen, bratty stranger intrude for that long. (boy invited himself to llh's home, sat himself down eating the owner's dinner and nosing in his cooking abilities!!! ily bb but that was uncalled for 😭)

of course there are many more layers in their relationship. there is a substantial degree of their history as (unwitting) teacher-disciple: fdb is still healthy and alive all thanks to the existence of lxy as a spiritual teacher role model in his life, regardless it being one-sided or not. there is also indeed some part of friendship in it, especially from fdb's point of view. he sees llh as a kindred spirit who he could enjoy a life of freedom with for life. but llh never reciprocates. he knew this was short-lived. and so ultimately, the hierarchical layer of their relationship overpowers the equal one, where llh's treatment of fdb as a nephew/小辈 younger family member and a disciple is the one that sealed the fate of their relationship.

if (blood-based) familial ties are irrelevant in jianghu, then the closest proxy to a father-son relationship in the martial world would be a teacher-disciple relationship. lxy and his shifu are a clear, indisputable example. for fdb and llh, their teacher-disciple tie is murkier and not consistently applied. they were also never ritualised as teacher-disciple, and thus are not teacher-disciple in any official capacity as far as confucian ideas are concerned. yet in crucial moments, it is invoked by llh as a card of authority over fdb to get out of sticky situations with fdb. and there was their final scene together: in a moment of sincerity, llh gives the approval to fdb as his disciple - then entrusting fdb with the secret manual of his techniques, up until his final letter in which fdb was recommended to dfs as a successor to his martial abilities.

in an imperial setting, this would have been the relationship of an emperor and his crown prince that straddles both ruler-subject and father-son ties aka a tag-team of disaster. the teacher has an obligation to nurture his disciple as a successor to himself, and love him like a son too. on the flipside, he holds the final power in their relationship - withholding knowledge and feelings from the younger one. they are only equals in a way a parent-child can be. they are only equals as much as the parent allows. and this is how fdb got left behind in the dust of llh's departure. he was the child treating his parent like a friend, supporting him emotionally and begging to be loved back the same way he loves his parent - but the parent had a lifetime way ahead of him and stayed out of his reach, physically and emotionally.

llh and fdb operate with the trapping of a friendship but have always been family in the core. llh had known that way before fdb did, just like everything else he had known and put out of fdb's reach. because. fdb did not have to know. fdb is different and will forge his own path. and that's a kind of love llh has for him that nobody understands (in fact not even fdb himself) - one that is on a different plane from friendships.

by repurposing the framework of relational ties, mlc showed that the essence of familial relationships aka its intimacy and closeness can be independent from biology and formalised rituals. and it is important to myself for stories to say that people can build close ties and deeply meaningful relationships even without being born or ritualised into any.

then back to how these relational ties are inextricable from the conceptualisation of the 'self' in confucian worldview: the roles you play in these relationships are intended to define you. there is no 'self' independent from it. while the concept of a social, relational self is fully rooted in reality, being locked into social roles can be a painful way to live - a way that llh has experienced as lxy the sigu sect leader. so, in order for lxy/llh to realise a sense of self that exists outside the norms, it inevitably points to another way that requires a cut from these relationships. that is then the buddhist (or taoist) answer of looking past attachments to the world such as the confucian idea of relationships defining your being. only with a dissolution of a sense of 'self', can there be true liberation.

#莲花楼 #mysterious lotus casebook #lhlmeta #lhl #my posts #dihua #can't believe this is how i choose to spend an inordinate amt of my free time 😐😐 being a broken recorder of brainrot 😐#anw the handful of fanghua moments that have moved me are the ones that are about the unbridgeable gap between them as 长辈小辈 as 徒弟师父 #(me realising lxy telling fdb 这个徒弟我没有白收 actually drives me nuts)#me: a brainrot-level dihua shipper first and foremost. also me: dedicating more of this meta to fanghua than dihua #about how fanghua's relationship is its own unique kind in the story. equally deep as dihua. just in a wholly different way.#dihua are friends and married and familial. but fanghua is family through and through #-> tl;dr of this meta actually #i just have extremely strong feelings about fanghua as a complicated little family unit.#which is independent of “shipping” FOR ME. but for anyone else though you can make anything out of it.#(gotta admit i'm a bit antsy about posting this and is uncertain how it's gonna be read. bc my reading of fanghua is so specific...well)#anyways. obsessed with dihua appropriating the heteronormative rituals <3 #edit: I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT DIFANG aaaAAAGHHHHHHHHHH #but. it's true they're very purely friendship-based i think

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imtrashraccoon · 12 days

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This time on... Weird Things I Looked Up For A Fic!

What is the bone called on the top of your skull?

Cute nicknames for children.

What are those hats that Mafia men wear called?

Were fedoras popular in the 80's?

What does cigar smoke smell like?

What is that fancy whiskey Mafia and business men drink in movies?

What type of glass is best for scotch whiskey?

I'm probably not done just yet and this isn't counting my research into a character for this specific oneshot...

I'll probably be posting the oneshot in a few days, so look forward to something very...special... ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

#raccoons rambles #can you guess what my current wip is about?#or who it's about?#hint i haven't written anything for them already #i felt like i had to post this #these aren't weird things to search but they're very specific i guess #this is new territory for me if you can't tell #i know of one person who knows what this is for... ;)#actually i did briefly mention it to another friend too...#undertale #writeblr

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purplexiasphinx · 3 months

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ame. if you even care

#oc #oc art #my ocs #my art #concept art #tbh creature #pixel art #art #digital art #im actually tagging things can you tell they mean so much to me #their name is ame they're agender and pansexual and have a crush on a transfem deergirl barista #they acquired a drinking problem when their coworker decided to start casually trying to murder them #you know the saying when life gives you lemons #life made them a lemon so now some fucking guy is trying to make lemonade and it HURTS #brainrotting about them all the time forever #might make a refsheet of them not in their work uniform with notes that relate specifically to them as a person like what bands they like #and who their friends are and what their coffee order is #i'm Normal about them

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purble-gaymer · 5 months

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couple more of galacta and the buggy

#kirby #kirby au #sir arthur kirby #galacta knight #aeon hero #rhyn's art #i can’t believe the timeline reset before they could be friends. never forget #thinking a lot about horrific demises today. i made a conspiracy board and everything #guys i think the big twist is that bugthur makes an appearance and they have to fight him /j (even if that would be awesome)#i kinda wanna draw his dragon form from the monster gsa au to actually #can you tell i like this guy a lot #please excuse my rough approximations of a mantis in some of these. they're complicated creatures

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jankwritten · 1 year

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Hazel takes a bite of her sandwich and glances at Jason from the side, her eyebrows going up as if she's silently saying, "well?"

Jason sinks his teeth into his own sandwich and pointedly ignores looking at her. It's a good sandwich, has a good crunch. He looks at it while he chews.

"Ahem," Hazel coughs, and elbows him in the side.

"Ow."

The stink eye she fixes on him is impressively frightening. Jason gulps and glances up, finally, to where Hazel was trying to drag his attention.

Nico, seated at the Hephaestus table with Leo, is grinning. Really truly grinning, like, grinning with his teeth, his eyes squinty at the corners, shoulders shaking with genuine laughter.

Jason sighs, his head tilting off to the side.

Gods, Nico is so pretty. He's always been pretty, like, it's just always been a thing Jason's noticed, but he's seen it more and more lately. Nico's been opening up more to different people around camp, and in the process getting more comfortable in his own skin. He glows, genuinely, with this nice, feathery aura around him. A soft, clean light.

"You are genuinely hopeless, you know that?"

"Yeah," Jason sighs again, turning back to his lunch. Nico's grin is, of course, seared into his brain, but it's probably better that way - he won't stare if he has the image in his mind's eye. He takes another bite of his food and elbows Hazel back. "I'm gonna ask him out soon."

Hazel shakes her head, looking up at him with false-wonder. "You are delusional. You know, I've got this running theory that the more often you say that, the less likely you are to actually do it."

"Hey! Be nice to me, I'm still technically your superior."

"Superior pain in my ass, maybe."

Jason scoffs. He shoves her, gently, just enough to make her sway in her seat and laugh all loud and scratchy like she used to only do around Nico, her head tilted back.

A silly little wedge of pride works between his bottom ribs.

Hazel, still chuckling, settles back in close enough that Jason can feel how chilly she is. Just like with Nico, he has to resist the urge to offer her his jacket. She always tells him he worries too much. He tells her it's not too much to want his friends to be comfortable.

He tears the crust off his sandwich and puts it on Hazel's plate when she turns back around to look at table nine. He looks too - Nico and Leo have their heads together over a blueprint, now, pointing out parts of it to one another.

Soon. And he really means it this time. He's gonna ask Nico out soon.

#idk what this is but i wanted to write jason and hazel being friends and this happened #so #take it i guess #can you tell i haven't read hoo in 6 years aka I don't actually know what hazel's character is like at all #spiritual successor to my jason and hazel are best friends post #Jason puts his crust on Hazel's plate 1) to annoy her but 2) because she'll go up and sacrifice them when jason doesn't feel like it #i don't actually know if pontifex is technically the superior to Praetor but we're going to act like it is #jason grace #hazel levesque #implied potential jasico #implied potential valdangelo #(implied potential valdangelace eyes emoji)#nico di angelo #leo valdez #my writing #rhys written #i just think they're neat

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cinnamon-phrog · 21 days

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Do you ever see a take in a fandom tag and you're like HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHH

#it was SO contradictory too ugh. and a mutual liked it!#you disrespect me. you disrespect my whole family #you call us 'stinky poopy babies'#you punched my wife. you kick mah baby you KICKed my FOCKin BABY #you ate our dog. YOU ATE OUR HOUSE #/ref #it's always the people i like too. everytime i want to find a d/ hmis artist or mutual BAM they're mean petty and even a nonce #and mean to peoples with hc's like mine. yes yes it happens in every fandom but not to the point where literally everybody sucks!#aside from my mutuals who are casually into the show you guys are boss <33 #a d/ hmis artist will tell me they don't care/ even like my hc's and i'll feel great #a couple months later and they're talking shit about it or liking posts about why people who have said hcs are somehow predatory #as if there aren't actual predators in the tags and their little supportive minions running amuck. who draw LITERAL cp of Yellow #i'm not mad anymore i've become very numbed to this. i end up losing 'friends' to the point where i don't know how to make them anymore.#'course that doesn't mean i'll stop trying though. but give benefit of the doubt and be MASSIVELY let down.#or assume the worst. be RIGHT and yet still be somehow worse for assuming.#so i'm just gonna not interact. i'll still put my s/elfship stuff in the tags though i am above guilt or shame now. Look At My Post Boy #cuz like if all these people can get away with being petty and two faced then i can get away with smooching puppets #make Love not War

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smoshgames · 23 days

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MARRIED SHARTNEY Happy April's fools you guys.

#actually can't believe you guys still think this is fake hodiudndj they got you so badddd #you can tell the engagement pic was long ago when he still had a mustache #these are professional pics in a rented venue and everyone at smosh is so happy stoppdbinhiud #shayne topp #courtney miller #smosh #they would have to be insane i hope they actually keep it up and they're likr nah we're just friends

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hoperays-song · 5 months

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Gooseless's Favorite Sing Ships

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scarletiswailing347 · 1 year

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saw a vampbo and got inspo for my banquet au lol

this is meant to be platonic but i cant really blame anyone for seeing it as romantic considering *gestures* yknow

btw grian's reply isn't just exaggeration, vampires in this world...lowkey work like viruses lol, i mean it's not an exact comparison obviously but it's pretty close

grian is an endian which is different from enderians in that it's specifically the species of those bitches from the end credits. he was originally gonna be a watcher but my story changed too much for it to make sense since, from what i know of the watchers, they're a lot more active than the creatures in my story -- hence i made the endians which are more like observers rather than watchers

the thing about endians is that, as passive as they are, they are extremely powerful and can one hit kill most creatures including vampires

now here's where the virus-like qualities of the vampires in this universe come into play, vampires are pretty much entirely powerless against endians...unless they suck their blood -- this is cause, once vampires suck a creatures blood, they rapidly develop defenses against that creature and, to some extent, other creatures of that species as well, making it theoretically possible for them to become completely unkillable against a specific species

of course they're gonna have to be careful how much blood they drink at a time cause if a vampire is too weak to handle an endian's blood they'll just die from lifeforce poisoning essentially lol, but endians have a lot of lifeforce in them so they only really need a little anyway to be satiated

the fact that endians have a lot of lifeforce make them very attractive to vampires and what stops most vampires from pursuing them is the fact that they'll most likely just get killed trying to do so (being powerful doesnt necessarily mean having a lot of, if any, lifeforce btw)

grian has been burned this way before when a certain vampire betrayed his trust and used his massively increased resistance against him and pretty much any other endian he encountered, luckily he didn't reach the point of full immunity and was killed once enough endians banded together to kill him

this incident caused an even bigger rift among vampires and endians and a lot of endians p much became kill-on-sight when it comes to vampires, grian also got banished for "being foolish enough to ever trust a vampire to such an extent"

so yeah grian letting mumbo suck his blood is a Pretty Big DealTM

#grumbo #hermitshipping #< i mean Not Really but well *gestures* yknow #c mumbo #c grian #hc banquet au #au #txt #mine.art #you could say that the endians seem a little ooc considering how kind they are in the credits #and i say i like drama and angst lol #(also it's very much the minority of endians who are specieist and they're generally too passive to do anything anyway)#oh yeah grian's feelings about the endians is a bit complicated #on one hand they're his people #on the other hand they exiled him for... trusting his friend #i mean that's pretty messed up #regardless his exile has gone long past involuntary lol he never wants to see any of those bitches again #well except jimmy but That's It #it's a small and incredibly distant community so it's pretty easy to do just that lol #and you can tell that The Incident was a Huge deal considering multiple endians actually Did Something Together #also for anyone wondering yes sam is in fact the certain vampire referenced #i wanted to reference as much of the hermits past series as i can considering they're all p much nigh immortal in this au #certain exceptions being for those hermits who are new to the whole being nigh immortal thing like iskall and wels #although i'll still try to reference as much as i can lol

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crossdressingdeath · 1 year

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I really hope that TSatS features Nico and Will having so many issues around being complicit in Octavian's death, and Nico in addition having so many issues around killing Bryce. On Octavian's end these are children complicit in a gruesome death; necessary or no, that sort of thing's going to stick with them! Especially since as far as we see they never tell anyone about it (Nico might have told Dionysus during their therapy sessions, but as far as I can remember that's not confirmed), which means the only people they can discuss the whole thing with is each other. ...Or I guess Michael Kahale—assuming he's still alive post-ToA, since that's not actually confirmed—but I feel like the understanding between him and them is probably that they Do Not Acknowledge It, assuming they ever see each other at all. Anyway. I'm sure being able to share the weight of what they were part of between the two of them would help, but... well, sharing the burden of being a teenager traumatized by your part in a brutal death with another teenager traumatized by their part in said brutal death is only going to do so much. And I feel like more specifically the fact that Will is a healer would make the whole situation so much worse for him; knowingly standing by and letting someone die knowing he could easily save them would be hard for any hero, but for someone who's dedicated to healing people? Yeesh.

And of course on top of that... Bryce's death is a really cool and dramatic scene that goes way harder than I'd expect a children's book to go, but it's also absolutely horrific. Partially because Nico turns him into a ghost with zero sign of hesitation and that is so much, but I feel like for Nico partially because he doesn't remember it. Like, the fact that he has no memory of killing Bryce gets glossed over in BoO, but he turned a guy into a ghost with no hesitation or mercy and he doesn't remember. He was really angry at Bryce for threatening Reyna, and the next thing he knew the guy was dead (and he'd been knocked out for three days). He has no idea how he did it or even what he was thinking at the time! He was either out of control of his own actions or he wanted to kill Bryce, and he has no way of finding out which. That would be a terrifying thought: either he's a willing murderer (while him killing Bryce was to save Reyna and Hedge and I fully agree with it, it was absolutely murder in a way Octavian's death isn't, Bryce was completely powerless and begging for mercy by the end there) or his powers can hijack his body and push him into doing things that he would never do of his own free will, and he'll probably never know which. Which does beg the question of if anything could set him off like that again, which I feel like is something that would weigh on Nico. I'd love to see him admit that he's actually really scared that something will push him over the edge again and either he'll lose control of his powers and kill someone else or (possibly worse) discover that he was in control when he killed Bryce and did it because he wanted to. Now, I don't think Nico could turn someone into a ghost just like that, my theory is that it was only possible in Bryce's case because Bryce was threatening someone he loved using a closely held secret (which Nico understandably took rather personally) and, more importantly, he was halfway faded out of the living world already; I doubt he could've done it if he hadn't been mostly full of darkness already or if he hadn't been overwhelmed with protective fury at the threat to his dear friend. But whether or not Nico knows that is unclear; I can see him being terrified at the very thought that it's possible that he could snap and kill someone again.

Basically given how TSatS seems like it's going to be largely about All The Trauma, it would feel like a huge failure on Rick's part to not go into how being responsible for Octavian's death absolutely would've fucked Will and Nico up, and also how directly killing Bryce absolutely would've fucked Nico up. If I'm remembering right, setting aside Luke's death—Percy and Annabeth supplied the weapon he stabbed himself with, but I wouldn't call them complicit in it the way Will, Nico and Michael are complicit in Octavian's death since it was entirely Luke's decision in the end—Will and Nico (and Michael Kahale but he's not important currently assuming he's even still alive) are the only protagonists knowingly and willingly complicit in another demigod's death, and Nico is the only protagonist to actively kill another demigod! I can accept them not talking about it in ToA, since "Hey, we're super fucked up from the deaths we caused/played a part in and we don't know what to do about that because we're kind of sort of murderers before the age of eighteen and that's really not the sort of thing you just tell people" isn't something to drop on Will's suddenly-sixteen-and-mortal godly father without warning during a serious crisis situation and I can't see anyone they might have told about it off-page spilling the beans without permission either and when it happened Apollo was already in deep shit and so probably not paying a lot of attention to what his kid was doing, so our POV character wouldn't know about it and wouldn't find out (I know he's aware that Octavian's dead, but unless I'm forgetting something—which is. entirely possible, I should reread ToA—he doesn't know the part Will and Nico played in it). But if it doesn't come up at all in the book told entirely from their perspectives, I'm... honestly gonna be pretty pissed!

#tsats #heroes of olympus #nico di angelo #will solace #if there isn't a moment in tsats where one of them snaps and just goes 'we are MURDERERS!'#(preferably in response to the other or both of them having moral qualms about something)#and they're both suddenly forced to contend with this thing that they've been trying SO hard to bury #then what is even the POINT #...actually if it doesn't happen i might have to write it because my GOD the angst potential #like you KNOW that even aside from bryce they both consider their part in octavian's death murder #(i don't know if it would count legally but they definitely THINK of it as murder. nico explicitly refers to it as such in boo)#(i guess it's possible will doesn't but i'm pretty certain he does even if he does seem to understand why they had to do it)#and who can they tell about that? how do they even BEGIN to raise that topic?#how do you tell your friends that you knowingly and willingly killed someone even indirectly?#ESPECIALLY given the greek demigods generally seem to frown on killing even enemy demigods #or at least it's not the Generally Done Thing #oh god i'm having so many emotions about the boys thinking they're murderers for their part in octavian's death #send help

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fruityfroggy · 12 days

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ASGKJKUYFG TYSM @anonymocha FOR GIVING ME A DIRECTION TO GO WITH MY RAMBLINGS<3

Anyways…oh Verdigris, I’ve come up with so many extra bits and pieces to her lore in the past month or so and I didn’t really get to talk about her in the first place, so I’m glad that someone’s interested (this is gonna be so long, I can feel it)

First things first, we’ll get the big thing out of the way: her arcane skill. Kind of a big part of her story is how she is a “plant whisperer”, which means that she’s able to hear the voices of plants and therefore communicate with them. This made her form a prominent sense of empathy for plants, as they are unheard by everyone except her.

(Now, a lot of the things I’ll mention about Verdigris will make a lot more sense)

So a fun little fact is that plants have a “way of speaking” that sounds more poetic than your normal speech, since they’re just describing things based off of what they know from nature. And because of her arcane skill, Verdigris does talk like them a little (which just comes off as being poetic/dramatic). Another thing that comes with this “way of speaking” are “Titles of the Plants”, which is the thing that you remind the plants of, that they therefore refer to you by (Vertin is “The Wandering Wind”, Sonetto is “The Shade in Daylight”, etc).

Why am I mentioning this? Well but of course it’s for yuri reasons! Because this is the perfect way for Verdigris to subtly and sapphic-ly pine for a certain arcanist by the title: Ray of Sun (and who this refers to is not disclosed). She mentions this “Ray of Sun” quite frequently in her diary, which I’d imagine could be one of those pages of text you can find between stages, as well as in her intimacy voiceline (which I haven’t written, but we can imagine, okay).

Anywho…when it comes to interacting with other arcanists, Verdigris is very much the most likeable out of my three ocs here (she’s just a cinnamon roll, not toxic or hard to communicate with). So she gets along with basically everyone in the suitcase. Chaotic or calm, she’s patient enough to talk to them. Tho she’s the closest with Lilya I’d say, since they’re bonding over a shared language/heritage and shut up, it’s adorable. Especially since Verdigris didn’t have anyone to speak Russian to for a long time (she lived in Spain, that’s why) and Russian was her mother’s language (she never got to meet her, so it holds special significance to her (things are getting angsty haha)). This problem was the whole reason she created her own critters actually. But hey, now she has someone and the vibes are good again.

As for their dynamic, it’s obvious that they have a “balancing each other out” situation, and I like to call it “Lilya and her designated driver” as a joke. But truthfully, Verdigris is surprisingly down with most of her shenanigans and no one understands why. Lilya kinda just wants to show Verdigris all the “fun stuff” she usually does, and she just goes along with it while some of the other arcanists watch them in horror (they’re just having a good time tho). When Verdigris is busy, Lilya would go visit her workshop to see what she’s doing like: "What you making, Verdie?:]" (she finds it interesting).

Considering what she does, I feel like Verdigris would probably be crossing paths with Medpoc kinda often as well (hehe). Verdigris just isn’t super affected by Medpoc’s hostility, and still treats them very well after getting yelled at. Once they warm up to her tho, she kinda becomes their emotional support (aka the person they rant to while she hands them a cookie or smth), and they’d pass out together while working across from each other, since neither of them remember to sleep (or do anything else).

I also think that she could help Shamane repair and/or upgrade his mechanical arm (since that’s kinda her specialty), and in turn gain a new father figure. Shamane would definitely like her Dendrogues and greet them when he sees them hopping around as well.

Some honourable mentions are the other calm healers (Dikke and Tooth Fairy). Dikke would grow fond of Verdigris for how fair and thoughtful is, but she'd tell her to not be so tolerant of everything. As for her and Tooth Fairy’s situation, they actually have pretty similar vibes, so they’d probably do some somewhat questionable things together that aren’t so questionable if they’re doing it, like baking together (there’s definitely no tooth fairies in the muffins they’re making, don’t question the taste of plums) and going out into the forest to look for teeth.

Oh right! Verdigris also has a small interaction with Pristine after implanting the new heart she made for her, since Pristine’s original heart (crystal) is the thing that makes her body possessable to Arcana (there’s some context from this post that is needed to understand what I’m talking about). This is a big plot point in Pristine’s story, so guess who’s growing attached to Verdigris. Yeah, she kinda just follows her around whenever she sees her from there on out, maybe even tugs on her sleeve saying “Where art thou headed to? Let me go with thee!” (Welcome to motherhood, Verdigris!)

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ethwastaken · 3 months

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i was just at a james marriot gig and i've still not fully realised it

#sleeping on trains my babygirl #it was So good #and just. yknow you can absolutely tell how goddamn much he loves what he does i'm so in shock #i went with a friend that i didn't actually really know that well but they're so sweet #and they actually knew james #no one else i could've gone with would have #so that made it even better #being able to scream all of don't blame me with someone who actually knows and loves the song feels so much better #also this was his first show ever in germany and he said it's his favourite europe show so far #love him so much :) <3 #eth talks

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trentcrimminallybeautiful · 11 months

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Okay so Trent absolutely knows shorthand and writes most of his notes in it right?

I think he probably also has horrible handwriting, he writes to fast and it makes his words incomprehensible. He's also dramatic enough to modify the shorthand he knows to ensure nobody knows what he's writing.

My point to all of this is, imagine him forgetting his notebook somewhere and someone from Richmond finds it, maybe Jamie or Roy or Rebecca and they're like "neat let's see what he wrote about me" only to be hit by complete nonsense (to them). Even the bits where he actually wrote something out are just indecipherable scribbles.

I think this is hilarious, the idea has been amusing me all day and I wanted to share it

what's hilarious is we have the same braincell, i literally also was like "does trent NEED to have personalized shorthand that's some sort of elaborate code he knows by heart so that no one can read his notes even if they had time? no. does he? definitely. if confronted he would claim that it's for journalistic integrity reasons, but truthfully it kind of makes him feel like a spy and he likes it." also because while some of it is genuine notes, some of it is just like. stupid shit. grocery list of shit he forgot to get earlier. jotting down a terrible pun ted made or some detail about something ted likes ("taking notes on your crush is both normal and regular behavior so long as no one ever sees or finds about it" trent reminds himself repeatedly)

and it's so much funnier if he also just has terrible handwriting and needn't have bothered bc no one could read it anyway. (same, trent, my brain goes faster than my hands. one time my dad's doctor looked at my handwriting when i was like, ten, and was like "wow, and you're smart kid, too. you should be a doctor when you grow up" dlfkgjdh)

ANYWAY i love the idea of them actively trying to snoop and it's just. complete gibberish. especially if then they're just like frowning down at it and then pan to behind them and trents like "looking for something" slgkjdfg

#ive actually been half brewing a fic about trent and his notebook/shorthand called stenography #so hmmmmm.#also theyd all have such different Snooping Behavior #jamie tries sooooo hard to act casual. flips open page with pen.#roy just keeps staring at it from the corner of his eye before going FUCK andthen just getting up and fully opening it #etc #also picturing. the entire team gathered around one (1) notebook #bumbercatch is now attempting to Decode It with his Mad Codebreaking Skills #and trent just walks in like oh i left my noteb--whaaaaat is happening #and it's the entire team all giving him the Deer In The Headlights look. crowded around his notebook.#and hes like. ................... and they're like ................#ALSO see #trent: you want to know a secret? the notebook is only about fifty percent notes for the book.#the other fifty percent? notes on ted. extensive notes on terrible puns he's made and the like. this here? this line?#this notes that he said his favorite muffin is blueberry. i brought him a blueberry muffin the next morning and said it was just an extra.#this bit? this is just 'trent lasso' written three times in a row. next to it i seem to have scribbled 'why are his eyes so pretty'. hm #jamie in an awed whisper: why are you telling me this #trent leaning in: Because No One Will Believe You.#anyway thats how jamie and trent become friends #he can respect that #confuses the hell out of roy though #askbox #trent crimm #tedtrent #tedependent

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